please stay with her mother until she got there.
So I stayed. I called my other client for the afternoon and canceled. I called my neighbor to get Willa off the bus. I sat in the hospital waiting room while they did surgery on Mrs. Whitaker’s hip,
and then I sat next to her bed in the recovery room while she slept.
When she woke up, it was dark outside. She looked at me for a long time without saying anything.
“You’re still here,” she said finally.
“Susan’s flight lands at six in the morning. I told her I’d stay.”
“You have Willa.”
“Willa’s with my neighbor. She’s fine. She sent you this.”
I held up a piece of paper. Willa had drawn it that afternoon, when I called and told her what happened. It was a picture of Mrs. Whitaker’s house. All forty-two windows. And in every single window, she had drawn a little yellow light.
GET WELL SOON, it said at the top, in purple marker. THE HOUSE MISSES YOU.
Mrs. Whitaker looked at it. She didn’t say anything. Her chin trembled.
Then she turned her face toward the wall.
